News – Page 6 – Stewart Raceway

Track Day Report, October 14, 2023

Well, it was kind of a staggered day with Team Maddox showing up in the AM and doing a bunch of testing laps and one full rotation race. Shaylin Maddox won the only race we did, which I think is her first full race win–Way to go!

Abe Maddox seemed to be a bit distracted but wasn’t too far off. He also won a heat or two. Shaylin and Abe were both running Viper V-SPEC cars while I was running a bone-stock MegaG+ with a “paper” Whelen Modified body.

Normally, a V-SPEC Viper would blow the doors off a stock MegaG+ 1.7 car. However, with the paper body, the chassis is much faster and handles significantly better. Still working on the paper body design for the 1.7 MG+ but I am getting close to a simple and easy-to-install version. I’m focusing on a USAC Whelen Modified style first and will look at other designs once I sort out what works and what doesn’t.

Place	Name	Laps	Points	Total Time
1	Shaylin Maddox	174	83	2428.881
2	Steve Stewart	178	81	2443.839
3	Abe Maddox	158	76	2452.908

Later in the day, Aaron Castro showed up to test some MegaG+ cars and got to meet most of Team Maddox as they were getting ready to roll towards home. Webster Motorsports showed up shortly after Aaron’s arrival.

Team Maddox departing was a bummer but they accomplished their goals and had a great track day. The good news was we still had three drivers on the track so we did a bunch of hot lapping and then clicked off one Viper V-SPEC rotation race. The racing was very close with Aaron bagging second place overall and Kevin Webster very, very close.

We decided to tech the cars to show Aaron the process. Both Kevin’s and Aaron’s cars were relatively close in both dyno numbers and downforce, while Home Cookn’s car was substantially better in both categories.

Turns out, both drivers were running out-of-the box V-SPEC chassis’ with only timing adjustments. Kevin’s car was actually running retarded timing, which is good for small home tracks and tight courses. Aaron’s car was running fairly neutral timing. Both cars had stock Razor front ends and stock PST rear tires.

Of course, advancing the end bell timing makes a big difference in off-the-corner and straightaway speeds, installing smaller profile rear tires increases downforce considerably, and an independent front-end improves corner speed.

All this made me realize that most of our Sportsman drivers are probably running bone-stock Viper V-SPEC cars, which can be very competitive but obviously inferior to a properly setup HOPRA SPEC RACER chassis, which are the only V-SPEC rules we run at Stewart Raceway right now.

Maybe we need to revive the HOPRA SPEC STOCK class. Pretty much the same rules as SPEC RACER but is restricted to hardbodies and no adjustable brush barrels. Independent front-ends are still allowed but that is not a big game changer.

Any other ideas out there? I think the SPEC RACER rules are pretty basic but it looks like we need to bring some parity to the Viper V-SPEC class racing.

Okay, shut up and drive!

Prototype “Paper” SK Modified Body

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My first iteration of a “super-light” paper body for our MegaG+ Support Class cars. This one is made out of premium glossy photo paper and is mounted on a 1.7 MegaG+ chassis using 8 mil clear double-sided tape I got from George.

Kevin worked up this body using some sort of drafting paper and then laminated it with some other material.

Both bodies are pretty cool. Haven’t tested them on the track yet but I did run a regular paper prototype last Saturday on a Jag DR-1 chassis and it held up pretty well. These bodies are way light and the car feels and handles like it has no body at all.

Design ideas are limitless and very appealing. We’ll see how durable they are. I’m looking forward to coming up with a Midget car design and upgrading my SWB MegaG+ IROC set. Once you get the design set and printed, it takes about the same time to trim and mount as a typical Lexan body. And way, way cheaper than even a clear Lexan body.

Open Track Day Galore

What an amazing day of slot car action!

The plan was to run all day exclusively on the 4-lane SR2 track. We started on SR2’s straight road course and did a bunch of hot laps before the usual suspects wanted to do some racing.

This was the first time in almost two years that we were running anything on the SR2 table. It took quite a few laps to clean the rails and get the cobwebs off the track. Due to a technical issue, we ran both practice and the only race on SR2 using Race Coordinator software, which did the job but had a couple of issues. Regardless, we were able to click off a race of six 25-lap heats using Kevin Webster’s Wizzard Storm Extreme IROC set.

Finish	Seed	Driver	Laps	Score	L1	L2	L3	L 4
1	1	Abe Maddox	87	18	7	11	16	16
2	4	Steve Stewart	94	18	11	16	13	13
3	3	Martha Elderon	91	18	7	7	16	16
4	5	Shaylin Maddox	88	17	11	7	13	16
5	2	Jerry Pearson	94	15	11	11	13	13
6	6	Kevin Webster	86	15	7	7	13	11

Just a fun race but it was very, very competitive. Abe won two heats and Martha Elderon won two heats. Only Kevin and I had experience on SR2 so it was quite impressive to see the new drivers do so well on the different course. Detailed Results

Abe’s Mom, Shaylin, wins the final heat of the Wizzard Storm race on SR2.

As seems to be the trend these days, Abe won on points and Martha bagged the final podium spot just three laps down on Home Cook’n. Not to be outdone by Abe, his Mom, Shaylin won the final heat with a perfect score of 25 laps.

Matthew Johnson didn’t race but he sure did a bunch of laps.

Abe was eager to get back to the SR3 course and let his Viper car rip. After a bunch of laps on SR3 with a whole new slew of drivers, Abe continued his dominance on the day by winning the second race on SR3. It wasn’t exactly a level playing field since Abe was running a Viper V-SPEC rig against mostly less capable cars. But Abe remained focused as ever and managed to edge out his schoolmate, Dax Schwartz, by just two laps. Madeline Johnson was just three laps behind Dax. Dax’s brother, Julian Schwartz, was just one lap behind Madeline. Extremely close racing by our neighborhood junior drivers!

Visiting adult driver, Andrew Noske, from Australia, did very well in his first-ever slot car race posting the second-fastest lap of the race! Thanks for joining us, Andrew! Detailed Results

Place	Name	Laps	Points	Total Time
1	Abe Maddox	40	17	364.271
2	Dax Schwartz	38	13	369.306
3	Madeline Johnson	35	11	370.117
4	Julian Schwartz	34	7	372.34
5	Andrew Noske	32	6	369.146

Okay, there it is. A beautiful day in the mountains, with a fantastic group of slotheads, and some seriously competitive and fun racing.

The juniors picking up their Hot Wheels hardware and medals.

Next weekend is the final round of the 2023 50/50 Series. Sportsman drivers, Jordan Walker and Kevin Webster are just eleven points apart in the series. Round 5 should decide which driver wins the series and moves on to the Expert ranks of our hobby. Best of luck to both drivers! The final round will be run on SR2 and will include at least two fuel races.

Okay, shut up and drive!

Round 4 of the 2023 50/50 Racing Series Postponed Again

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Yep, could not get the minimum driver/team registrations so ended up with a casual track day instead. Just four drivers but we did make history…

Kevin Webster, Jerry Pearson, and Martha Elderon showed up on a beautiful day in the Santa Cruz mountains to race but were not disappointed. We ended up racing our newest additions to the track’s IROC fleet.

Race 1 was the new AutoWorld Super III NASCAR cars running on the inside four lines of SR3. Jerry Pearson was on fire in both races. We decided on 16v for these cars as 18v seemed a bit too much for the longer NASCAR body wheelbase bodies.

AutoWorld Super III 1.7 chassis’ with NASCAR bodies. With a few easy mods, they run pretty good.

Jerry dominated the first-ever Super III race held on SR3 with a convincing win in the first segment followed by a second, third, and a first in the final segment, edging out Home Cook’n by just one point overall. He didn’t set any lap records in the process but he garnered the most points and took the top spot on the first-ever Super III podium at Stewart Raceway. Way to go, Jerry! (Details)

Place	Name	Laps	Points	Total Time
1	Jerry Pearson	78	56	1297.84
2	Steve Stewart	80	55	1250.01
3	Kevin Webster	76	45	1286.333
4	Martha Elderon	72	32	1302.092

Jerry wasn’t quite done with his stellar driving on the day. Next up was the Eric”Fastlane” Lane Viper V-SPEC F1/Indy cars. Eric gifted a brand-new set of four of these cars to the track recently and, boy, are they a hoot to drive. Smooth, very fast, and just a pleasure to drive.

Jerry, again, had a great race, winning two heats and only missed the top podium spot by two points. Jerry matched Home Cook’n lap for lap except for Segment 2, where he lost a lap and finished third. Had Jerry finished second or better in Segment 2, he might have secured the top podium spot in both races. Great driving by all, especially Martha, she doesn’t think so but she’s cutting exceptionally fast laps for somebody who has never owned a single slot car. Nice driving, Martha! (Details)

Place	Name	Laps	Points	Total Time
1	Steve Stewart	80	58	988.626
2	Jerry Pearson	79	56	1026.13
3	Kevin Webster	76	42	1015.468
4	Martha Elderon	67	32	1011.375

So, all in all, the two new IROC sets are very nice additions to the raceway fleet. The Super III cars took some work to get dialed in equal enough for fun IROC racing. Kevin Webster spent some extra time after the races and got all six running great for next time. As usual, the Viper V-SPEC cars were all very close in performance and very, very fast out of the box.

A fun day and great to flush out the new IROC sets before the next round of the 50/50 Series.

Okay, shut up and drive!

New Website Features

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While I’ve been “self-quarantined” I’ve been hacking on the Stewart Raceway website even more than previously announced.

Last week I added a new Forums service with a bit of a different twist. The new Forum is also available to the larger slot car community. We’ll see how that goes but anybody can create an account and post to the forums. Currently, Roseville Raceway and Thunder Road Raceway have their own forum categories, which they can manage. We’ll see if there is any interest from these track owners in taking advantage of forums to communicate with their communities. Their members/subscribers can also use most of the services available to Stewart Raceway members.

Native Private Messaging service. This is the primary and recommended PM service to use.

In addition to the forum features, I also added Private Messaging, Group Messaging, and Member/Subscriber Profile capabilities to the site. The basic idea behind these services is to allow members/subscribers to message each other directly or in a group fashion, and keep their member profiles updated with the most current info.

Yea, so what? I know, most of you could care less about these features. But one very useful aspect of profiles is having Stewart Raceway member profile information accessible to the Race Director. Right now the profile is pretty basic, consisting of contact info, scale interests, and classes currently competing in. The profile also includes driver availability for racing and/or track events. All of this helps track owners plan and organize racing and track events.

So, for now, the CALL TO ACTION is to simply log in to the site when you get a chance. This will automatically register you to the new profile and messaging features. All of these features, including the Forums, are only available to logged-in users.

Standalone PM service. Still evaluating but feel free to try it out and compare to the standard PM service. I may restrict this one to Race Director use-only, we’ll see.

Feel free to edit/update your profile while you’re logged in, only takes a few minutes.

NOTE: Right now there are two Private Messaging services. One is an integral component of your site account, which is accessible on your account/profile page after log in. The other is a stand-alone private messaging app accessible from the Member Resources page. Both are fine to use but each has its own interface and functionality.

If there seems to be interest in these new services, I’ll post additional user information and maybe a video or two on how to use them, we’ll see.

Open Track Day next Saturday! Register now!

Round 1 of the new 2023 50/50 Series goes green February 3, 2023. Register Now!

Okay, shut up and drive!